Is it possible to leave an object unrendered?
You probably forgot to switch from Blender render to Cycles. 

To switch from Blender render to Cycles, simply click on the drop-down menu near the top of the screen. It's right next to the little blender logo icon. Select "Cycles" Render from the list and you should be good.

Unless you have a version older than 2.42 (which was released in July of 2006), you have nodes. It's just a matter of opening the node view and selecting the correct material.

To open the node view, divide the 3d view area into two and then switch the second view's editor type to Node Editor.